ATLANTA – Trump National Doral is back on the PGA Tour schedule next year as a signature event that is sure to test how often the top golfers want to play during an extraordinary spring of five big tournaments in a six-week stretch.
Doral long was considered the start of the Florida swing, a can't-miss event as the PGA Tour began attracting international stars.
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Next year it will be a $20 million signature event the first weekend in May, part of a stretch that starts with the Masters, ends with the PGA Championship and has three signatured events in the four weeks in between.
“We’re excited to showcase the game’s greatest players competing at golf’s most iconic venues,” said Brian Rolapp, the tour’s new CEO.
Rory McIlroy missed three signature events this year, one of them at the start at Kapalua which he rarely plays because he typically begins his year in the Middle East.
“It’s quite a bit of a workload for the players to play that much golf in that stretch,” McIlroy said Wednesday. “But I think it’s not as if we’re having to travel halfway around the world to do it. These are all pretty easy stops on the East Coast for the most part.”
It also means players not eligible for those big events would have only two tournaments to play — one of them with a minimal purse — in that six-week stretch.
There's virtually no change from the 2025 schedule except for a few tournaments changing dates, the Mexico Open moving to the fall and moving the opposite-field event in the Dominican Republic from March (against Bay Hill) to July (against the British Open).
The PGA Tour lost the Barracuda Championship in Truckee, California, which had been opposite the British Open. It was the only tournament that used the modified Stableford scoring system.
Still to be determined is a title sponsor for what now is called the Miami Championship.
Doral first became part of the PGA Tour schedule in 1962. It became a World Golf Championship in 2007, and then the PGA Tour struggled to find a title sponsor when President Donald Trump bought the resort.
It moved away from Trump Doral to Mexico City after 2016, prompting Trump — the presumed Republican nominee at the time — to say, “I hope they have kidnapping insurance.”
The famed “Blue Monster” at Trump Doral then became a site for Saudi-funded LIV Golf each of the last four years. Miami is not part of the LIV schedule for 2026, although his Trump National outside Washington will be used.
When the concept of these limited field, big-money tournaments was formed, the idea was for all the top players to compete against each other.
“I go back and forth on that. I’m a believer in the sense of all of us playing in all these events is kind of the purpose of them,” Justin Thomas said.
But he also said some courses, no matter the purse, are not a good fit for some players. McIlroy said early in the year he never felt he played well at Hilton Head. Thomas said he finally began skipping a World Golf Championship in China for that reason.
“So if there are places that I think people look at that way, then you have to do what’s best for that particular person,” Thomas said. “Obviously, the perfect model would be for all of us to be at all the events as often as possible.”
Tommy Fleetwood said one way to look at it is a big stretch that could change someone's entire season if they play well.
“I think we all have an option to play or not play whatever we want, so you can schedule it however you want,” Fleetwood said. “If you want to play all of them, what an amazing stretch of opportunities for you in terms of big events.”
The spring stretch isn't the only busy part of the schedule.
The PGA Tour season begins a week later on Jan. 8 at Kapalua, giving players a little more time after the holidays to get ready.
That means the WM Phoenix Open, which prefers to end on Super Bowl Sunday, will be Feb. 5-8. The AT&T Pebble Beach moves back a week followed by the Genesis Invitational, both $20 million signature events.
Previously, the Mexico Open was after the West Coast Swing, a week before the start of the Florida Swing. Now the Cognizant Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, will follow two signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera, and precede two more big events in the Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Players Championship.
Scottie Scheffler does not play the Truist Championship in early May because he wants to support his hometown events in the Dallas area. The question for the PGA Tour is how many other players will not want to play that much amid the first two majors of the year.
In another move, the Rocket Classic in Detroit goes from the last week in June — two weeks after the U.S. Open — to the first weekend in August, two weeks after the British Open.
The fall portion of the schedule has not been released.
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf